Rough diamonds

Global Witness was set up stop the use of natural resources to fund corruption and human rights abuses. But, as Alison Benjamin discovers, its covert and unconventional methods set it apart from other NGOs

A few minutes into Blood Diamond, the Hollywood film staring Leonardo DiCaprio that opened last week in Britain, the action switches from the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone to a G8 summit in Antwerp, where a senior US state department official tells representatives from governments: "According to a devastating report by Global Witness, diamonds are being used to fund the conflict."

The report he refers to is A Rough Trade, which in 1998 exposed the illegal export from war-torn African countries of diamonds that bankrolled rebel groups notorious for mass rape and cutting off hands.

By uncovering the role both of companies and governments in the illicit trade, the report was the first rung in a Global Witness campaign that led to the establishment five years later of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, an international agreement to prevent the trade in conflict diamonds by tracking diamonds from the mines to the jewellers.

Changing the workings of an opaquely-run, billion-dollar industry was the second success for the fledgeling non-governmental organisation (NGO). Founded in London in 1995 by three campaigners - Simon Taylor, Patrick Alley and Charmiane Gooch - to stop the use of natural resources to fund conflict, corruption and human rights abuses, its first investigation exposed the secret timber trade that was funding the Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Cambodia.

Armed with a secret pinhole camera stitched into a bag, fake business cards for a company called Universal Export (a cover stolen from James Bond books and films), a stills camera and a GPS navigation system to pinpoint exact locations, Taylor and Alley drove 8,500km along the Thai-Cambodian border and discovered 18 different companies engaged in a trade that officially did not exist.

Three weeks after Global Witness unveiled evidence of illegal logging exports to Thailand, the border between the two countries was closed, depriving the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, of $90m a year. Some 13 months later, the Khmer Rouge in that part of Cambodia defected to the government. "We'd cut off their income," Taylor says.

Name and shame

The Global Witness founders met while working for the Environmental Investigation Agency, an offshoot of Greenpeace that conducted undercover investigations into environmental crime. They describe their methodology as gathering detailed, first-hand evidence of the problem, seeking to name and shame those responsible for mismanagement and misappropriation of revenues from natural resources, telling everyone about it in comprehensive reports meticulously checked by teams of lawyers, then following up with relentless lobbying for long-term solutions.

Not taking itself too seriously is clearly one of the ways Global Witness differs from other campaigning organisations. "NGOs can be very grey people in grey suits," Taylor says. It also does not do demos, has no membership base, and does not actively fundraise from the public.

Its first major donor was the Dutch arm of Oxfam. Today, almost half its £2.3m income is from charitable trusts and foundations and 15% from larger NGOs.

What really sets it apart, however, is that investigators double up as lobbyists, briefing policy makers and the media. There are no separate policy wonks or press officers. Taylor explains: "That way, no one can turn round and say: 'But you've not been there, you don't know.'"

Yearsley, for example, briefed the UN security council about the conflict diamond trade he had personally witnessed. "Our niche is to collect irrefutable evidence to force change," Taylor says.

Apart from some mishaps - including smoking cameras, being arrested as tourists and almost having their cover blown by a South African arms dealer - the approach has served them well. Other notable successes include the imposition of UN security council sanctions preventing the import of Liberian timber into member states. This deprived the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, of vital revenue, and established international recognition of the role of the timber trade in arms trafficking.

The exposure of corruption in oil, mining and gas industries in developing countries, led to the creation of the Publish What You Pay coalition of 300 local NGOs, which in 2003 resulted in the UK government's Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The EITI aims to stop billions of pounds of revenue from oil, gas and mining in developing countries being siphoned into off-shore bank accounts by increasing transparency in transactions between governments and companies.

Jonathan Winer, former US deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration, was contacted by Global Witness when he was trying to set up controls to tackle transnational organised crime. "They [Global Witness] played a catalytic role in moving certification, enforcement and regulatory regimes forward in illicit activity that no government had yet touched, including diamonds, timber and oil," he recalls. Winer now heads the Global Witness US foundation.

Surprisingly, around a third of Global Witness income is from governments. But Alley denies any criticism that it is getting into bed with the enemy. "Being campaign-led, rather than funding-led, means that our independence is never comprised," he argues. "The Department for Trade and Industry did once ask if we'd like to sign a confidentiality clause. We said we wouldn't take the funding under those conditions. No other government has ever tried to impose any restrictions."

Massive shakeup

It would be difficult to see how Global Witness could achieve its goal if it did accept any funding with strings attached. "We want a massive shakeup in the rules for international trade so that natural resources can fund peaceful development and reduce poverty in the world's poorest countries, instead of being asset stripped to fuel wars," Taylor explains. That involves taking on governments, global institutions, companies, financial institutions and the global legal framework.

Asked if other NGOs are becoming part of the problem, Taylor replies: "Some have swallowed the line that forestry concessions for industrial logging can work for local people." But he adds: "We don't want to be seen squabbling among ourselves. I hope to be able to sit down with them."

Global Witness now has 43 staff in London and two based in Washington. It deliberately does not employ local people on the ground. "It would put them in serious danger," Alley says. "We can publish very nasty information and then go." Indeed, Alley and his colleagues are personae non gratae in countries ranging from Cambodia to Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Their enemies are a rogues' gallery of the world's worst despots.

They are none too popular either with the diamond industry, which has spent millions of dollars heading off a potential public relations disaster from the release of Blood Diamond. However, a spokesman for the De Beers diamond company says: "The success of the Kimberley Process is down to the leadership Global Witness has shown in wanting to engage with governments and the diamond industry."

Global Witness has teamed up with Amnesty International to raise awareness, in partnership with the film, that conflict diamonds are still being smuggled into international markets and that the Kimberley Process needs independent monitoring to police compliance.

Last year, Global Witness grew by a fifth to run two new campaigns. One aims to nail individuals responsible for exploiting natural resources; the other to expose the global financial system that is complicit in the exploitation by banking the spoils.

Taylor dislikes any David versus Goliath analogy. He says: "When you have the evidence and strategically place it, size is irrelevant."

Close encounters

Environment and development NGOs come in all shapes and sizes, but some of the best known have recently found themselves in new territory. For the first time, the likes of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF find themselves not only agreeing with the government and big business but cheering them on. Having leaned on the door of power for so long, it has opened - and they are falling over themselves to kiss their old enemies.

Climate change has brought business, government, and what used to be called pressure groups, together like old buddies. They make almost interchangeable statements, they sit at the same tables, consult each other, shape each other's policies and even swap staff. They now find their old antagonists have not only stolen their ideas but are proposing to run with them further than they would ever imagine.

Many green groups receive significant government funding via action funds and other grants, but it is far worse for international development groups. Some now depend on the government for so much of their operating budgets that they are in danger of becoming their service arm. Some are loth to criticise the Department for International Development, even when they can see money being spent badly.

This cosy world in which NGOs become extensions, or clients, of the government may have started back in 1997, when many NGOs had directors who were so close to New Labour that there was almost no criticism of the government for two years.

The government loves the new, responsible groups and is happy to pay money to the Soil Association, the National Trust, WWF and others. In the words of one former head of a major environment group, it's the "toothless poodle syndrome".

Now NGOs spend more time branding themselves and writing policy papers, and less time campaigning, investigating and holding the powerful to account. The closer they get to business, the more corporate they become.

WWF has partnered loggers, GM soya companies and palm oil plantation owners in the belief that this will stop them ravaging a nation. Other groups take money from banks and oil and car companies. The companies that once feared environment groups now feel safe and hold their chequebooks open.

History suggests that the only time governments or businesses ever really shift is when confronted by their critics or shamed by evidence that exposes and lays bare their policies. When the NGOs start sounding like civil servants and accountants, they might as well disappear.John Vidal, environment editor